IBM 46M0997 - Possible dud?

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Lost-Benji

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Jan 21, 2013
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The arse end of the planet
Hello all,
I recently purchased a IBM 46M0997 expander and for the life of me, cannot get the Muppet to detect any drives (SAS or SATA) on the BP1, 2, 3 & 4 ports. Used both LSI HBA and Adaptec HW RAID card, same result, they know the expander is there (detected) but nothing after it.

Any ideas please?
 

pricklypunter

Well-Known Member
Nov 10, 2015
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I thought some of those cards were locked to IBM servers, maybe I'm wrong. Have you tried a firmware update on the expander? Might be worth a shot :)
 

Lost-Benji

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Jan 21, 2013
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The arse end of the planet
I thought some of those cards were locked to IBM servers, maybe I'm wrong. Have you tried a firmware update on the expander? Might be worth a shot :)
Thanks PP,
I did look at the firmware side but was seeing plenty of results of people who found newer firmware's were more trouble than worth.
I too have seen vendor locked gear (I have a rather costly HP P822 that I cant use as it wont allow POST), seems strange that I can see the expander on the HBA/RAID host cards but just no drives.
 
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Terry Kennedy

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Jun 25, 2015
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I recently purchased a IBM 46M0997 expander and for the life of me, cannot get the Muppet to detect any drives (SAS or SATA) on the BP1, 2, 3 & 4 ports. Used both LSI HBA and Adaptec HW RAID card, same result, they know the expander is there (detected) but nothing after it.
How are you cabling the expander to the drives/backplane? Are drives detected if you plug the cable currently in one of the expander outputs directly into your host adapter?
 

Lost-Benji

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Jan 21, 2013
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The arse end of the planet
Hello Terry,
The Expander is setup for dual-link back to HBA, so two SFF-8087 cables from either the twin-ports of a LSI HBA or an Adaptec HW RAID card. Drivers were then direct connect cables (SFF-8087 to SATA style fan-out) or SFF-8087 to SFF-8087 cables to backplane, (I have both styles of SM 836 chassis's). No drives detected on HBA/RAID cards, just the the presence of the expander when it's IBM details detected.
Both the HBA and the RAID card detect the drives and run them just fine solo, just not enough ports hence the expander.